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"In view of the content of many of the text messages between Strzok and Page, the OIG also asked the Special Counsel's Office to provide the OIG the DOJ issues iPhones that had been assigned to Strzok and Page during their respective assignments to the SCO." After a number of steps by the OIG, "was the recovery of thousands of text messages within the period of the missing text messages, December 15, 2016 through May 17, 2017, as well as hundreds of other text messages outside the gap period that had not been produced by the FBI due to technical...

When Apple released its iPhone XS line, with screens that range from 5.8 inches to 6.5 inches, they became the company’s largest phones yet. But the big screens have triggered a backlash from women who say the device is too large for the average female hand. “Women like me with small hands who need the most secure phone for safety reasons are stuck with something they can’t hold and constantly risk dropping,” tweeted sociology professor Zeynep Tufekci, who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Some people like the bigger phones. Fine. Keep an alternative for the...

Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, may be the leader of the world’s most valuable public company, but lately he has had to act a lot like the tech industry’s top diplomat,” Jack Nicas and Paul Mozur report for The New York Times. “Last month he visited the Oval Office to warn President Trump that tough talk on China could threaten Apple’s position in the country. In March, at a major summit meeting in Beijing, he called for “calmer heads” to prevail between the world’s two most powerful countries.” “In a trade and technology showdown between the United States and...

Facebook scraped call, SMS data for years from Android phones. iPhones never allowed this. Ten Minute Video When you think there's something lurking in the dark, you turn on the lights. And, now that Facebook's data harvesting, hoarding, and exploitation is being lit up by the internet version of the Bat Signal, more and more problems are being discovered. Most recently: That Facebook was scraping call and SMS logs of Android phone users. And yes, this is what happens when neither your operating system nor your app care about your privacy. From ArsTechnica: "This past week, a New Zealand man...

In what appears to be a major breakthrough for law enforcement, and a possible privacy problem for Apple customers, a major U.S. government contractor claims to have found a way to unlock pretty much every iPhone on the market. Cellebrite, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based vendor that's become the U.S. government's company of choice when it comes to unlocking mobile devices, is this month telling customers its engineers currently have the ability to get around the security of devices running iOS 11. That includes the iPhone X, a model that Forbes has learned was successfully raided for data by the Department...

The Black Lives Matter chapter of Greater New York expressed some concerns over New York Police Department officers receiving iPhones to better crack down on crime, the chapter president told The Daily Caller News Foundation. . . . Newsome would also prefer to see the money be invested in different programs, like racial sensitivity training, de-escalation methods, and training where the biggest criticizers of police can offer advice to the department.

Dow took a dive on Tuesday, plunging 400 points, thus marking its biggest point drop since 2016, when it fell 610 points in June. Due to investors’ fears of higher than expected inflation, the 10 year Treasury yield traded near levels not since since 2014. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell 1.2%, the Dow Industrial Average pulled back 400 points, while the NASDAQ composite lost 1.1%. This is the second day in a row US stocks traded significantly lower than expected, marking the first big selloff of 2018. On Monday, the DOW lost 177 points due to the rise in...

Ah, speculative execution. Man’s ever needing desire to get more done in less time resulted in a similar design for microprocessors. With the third wave maturing and on the brink of fading, speed is all that matters today. Information is available in the blink of an eye and requires similar speeds for decision making. Hesitate, and you’re done for. However, in the microprocessor case, this didn’t serve us too well. Speculative Execution on microprocessor didn’t account for what would happen should past usage trends not materialize. When we talk about every day processes, such as reading the news, this matters...

Apple has long inspired an almost religious devotion among customers and tech aficionados — but it just seriously undermined its fans' faith and loyalty. The company on Wednesday acknowledged what some people have long suspected: that it has been secretly stifling the performance of older iPhones. Critics have accused the company in the past, based on anecdotal evidence, of purposely slowing phones to compel users to upgrade to the latest model. While Apple admitted to the practice on Wednesday, it sought to underscore that it had done so for a purely altruistic reason: to prevent older phones from shutting down...

Apple has been accused of racism, amid reports that the Face ID authentication technology on its new iPhone X is failing to distinguish between Chinese users. A man from Shanghai bought his wife the new gadget soon after it was released last month, but she was shocked to discover it could be unlocked by her teenage son. The man, identified only by his surname Liu, phoned Apple's customer service hotline to report the problem. "Our son was using it and didn't know the password", he said, according to Shandong TV Station . He was told it was an isolated case...

The phones were valued at $370,000In another brazen burglary in downtown San Francisco, suspects dressed in hooded sweatshirts snatched at least 300 iPhone Xs valued at $370,000 and made off with them, according to San Francisco police. The smartphones — which launched to the general public Friday morning at $999 a piece — were stolen from a delivery truck parked in a loading dock at Stonestown Mall around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, police spokesman Officer Robert Rueca said. A white Dodge van was used in the burglary and anyone with information is asked to call police at (415) 575-4444. The...

Apple says that its preliminary assessments of the WikiLeaks documents released today indicate that the vulnerabilities it details for iPhone and Mac were fixed years ago. The documents, which originated with the CIA, detailed a variety of methods for compromising — breaking into — Apple devices if an agent was able to gain physical access to the device.The leaks were a part of the “Vault7″ documents, which WikiLeaks has been dribbling out. Some of the exploits, like NightSkies, could access personal info like call logs and SMS conversations — but only with physical access.Apple’s full statement is as follows We...

A new WikiLeaks Vault 7 leak titled “Dark Matter” claims, with unreleased documents, that the Central Intelligence Agency has been bugging “factory fresh” iPhones since at least 2008. WikiLeaks further claims that the CIA has the capability to permanently bug iPhones, even if their operating systems are deleted or replaced.The documents are expected to be released after a 10 a.m. EDT “press briefing” that WikiLeaks promoted on its Twitter. RELEASE: CIA #Vault7 "Dark Matter" https://t.co/pgnfeODXVB pic.twitter.com/vkI16f3vMD— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 23, 2017 Watch a livestream of the Julian Assange led event here. WATCH: WikiLeaks Vault 7 Livestream on CIA ‘Dark Matter’...

A new WikiLeaks Vault 7 leak titled “Dark Matter” claims that the Central Intelligence Agency has been bugging “factory fresh” iPhones since at least 2008 through suppliers. The documents are expected to be released after a 10 a.m. EDT “press briefing” that WikiLeaks promoted on its Twitter. And here is the full press release from WikiLeaks: Today, March 23rd 2017, WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 "Dark Matter", which contains documentation for several CIA projects that infect Apple Mac Computer firmware (meaning the infection persists even if the operating system is re-installed) developed by the CIA's Embedded Development Branch (EDB). These documents...

Army Special Operations Command is dumping the Android tactical smartphone for an iPhone for better situational awareness. Photo: Vesper Case UK. U.S. Army Special Operations Command is dumping its Android tactical smartphone for an iPhone model. The iPhone 6S will become the end-user device for the iPhone Tactical Assault Kit – special-operations-forces version Army’s Nett Warrior battlefield situational awareness tool, according to an Army source, who is not authorized to speak to the media. The iTAC will replace the Android Tactical Assault Kit. The iPhone is “faster; smoother. Android freezes up” and has to be restarted too often, the source...

Stanford Law Fellow Vivek Wadhwa weighs in on Donald Trump's rant on how Apple must make iPhones in the U.S. | Watch CNBC Live TV

Hell hath no fury like an angry Southern mom. Taking away electronics is a common parental punishment, but this mother decided to take it one step further - and shoot up her children's iPhones with a rifle. ‘I hereby denounce the effects that social media have on my children,’ the mom shouts at the beginning of the video, a gun in her hand. ‘Their disobedience and their disrespect.’ With perfect aim she blows the smartphone to smithereens, as its pieces go flying into the grass. ‘Set it up,’ she orders, as the man behind the camera begins to gather the...

We were wondering whether the FBI will agree to use in other cases the same hack that unlocked the San Bernardino iPhone just earlier this week, and it turns out the agency is more than willing to share its newly acquired know-how to help other law enforcement agencies solve their on-going investigations. Just days after it confirmed it didn’t need Apple to access the local files of the iPhone 5c that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters, the FBI agreed to assist an Arkansas prosecutor unlock an iPhone and iPod that may contain relevant evidence to a double...

The FBI tells us that its demand for a back door into the iPhone is all about fighting terrorism, and that it is essential to break in just this one time to find out more about the San Bernardino attack last December. But the truth is they had long sought a way to break Apple's iPhone encryption and, like 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act, a mass murder provided just the pretext needed. After all, they say, if we are going to be protected from terrorism we have to give up a little of our privacy and liberty. Never mind that...

The DOJ has filed its response to Apple's claims that unlocking an iPhone 5 would be unduly burdensome. This ongoing dispute over an All Writs Act order (the act itself dates back to 1789) is also an ongoing dispute over the use of encryption-by-default on Apple phones running iOS 8 or higher. The argument started with one of the founding members of the "Magistrates' Revolt" -- Judge James Orenstein -- who, back in 2005, challenged another All Writs order by the DOJ. A decade ago, Orenstein pointed out that the government's use of these particular orders circumvented both the judicial...